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Saturday, March 12, 2011

Damaged Japan Nuclear Power Plants Similar to Three Mile Island Incident

The massive magnitude 8.9 earthquake that had struck Japan on Friday had forced the government to close several Japanese nuclear power plants and oil refineries.

The earthquake located at the east coast area of Japan sent many homes and buildings into pieces. The tremor also raised the body of water and sent tsunami as high as 5 meters into the populated areas on the east coast lines.

Several news reports from Japan indicated that many people were injured in Sendai, north of Japan but no complete report of numbers of casualties or death has yet been issued by the government.

Japan only days ago was struck by magnitude 7 earthquake and in terms of economy has been struggling to boost its economy to new heights.

The Bank of Japan has promised that in the midst of this catastrophe will try its best on making the Japanese economy afloat and sustained.

But experts are more worried about the state of the nuclear power plants in Japan after the devastating calamity.

Authorities in Japan also warned of a possible radiation leak as two nuclear power plants were heavily damaged. As precaution, authorities had moved many residents far from the power plants, said Tokyo Electric Power Co representatives.

The two nuclear plants that were damaged are located in Fukushima 240 kilometers north of Tokyo, Japan.

Educators and experts also allayed public fear that no major radioactive disaster will happen.

"No Chernobyl is possible at a light water reactor. Loss of coolant means a temperature rise, but it also will stop the reaction," said Naoto Sekimura from the University of Tokyo.

Mark Hibbs, a who works for Carnegie Endowment for International Peace in Berlin said that what happened to Japan is like that of the Three Mile Island Incident in the US. Hibbs said in an interview with Newsmax.

“We were in a situation as I recall then very similar to where we are now, where we were told by news media in 1979 that there was a core melt accident unfolding, we didn’t know how serious it would become, and what would happen.”